Honor
by TimnAlan
Summary: Clarice is caught between the FBI and the need to find Hannibal again.


The story follows the canon of Hannibal up to the failed drug bust.

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No one ever asked Venus if she enjoyed being brought to land with a clamshell serving as a rickety boat. The heralding of trumpets tantalized her into her destiny and her prison. Clarice mused as she stared at the facsimile replica of the masterpiece as it hung on her wall. _Lecter was my clamshell and my trumpeter leading me into heaven, but hell cleverly masked by three letters and an air of importance dug her claws into me and held fast to my soul. I am their bitch goddess, a poster child for a hypocritical institution drowning its own importance while doing nothing._ The fifth of whiskey hung loosely in her hand, and the colors began to run together much as her drunken thoughts, the blue of the ocean swirling to purple, to green, and finally to a mocking set of red eyes. The gold of Aphrodite became herself surrounded by the red.

"Son of bitch," she screamed as the piercing ring of the phone interrupted her thoughts. _What had she been thinking about? No matter. _She pushed it into the back of her mind.

"What that hell do you want?" She droned, valiantly keeping the slur out of her voice, mostly. Recognizing the voice on the other end, she scowled. "I apologize, Mr. Krendler, I had no idea you would be calling at…" she glanced at the clock and slowly counted in her head, "three in the morning. Of course I'll come in; seeing as I have no life," Now she was drunk and pissed.

She punched the end button had tossed the phone across the room; it slammed into the wall breaking into little piece like her life. She debated throwing the bottle after it, but she hated to waste good alcohol. Especially since it looked like she would need it today. She grabbed the cold cup of coffee from yesterday sitting on the table and downed it, grimacing at its acidic flavor burning down her throat. She grabbed her keys shakily, walked slowly to her mustang, turned the engine on, and carefully weaved out of the drive onto the deathly quiet night.

She prayed the government tags would keep any police from pulling her over. She doubted she could see a straight line let alone walk one. She rolled down the black snake of the road keeping the vehicle mostly between the lines and going the minimum speed limit give or take twenty. She barreled in to FBI parking lot clipped a curb and hit the parking block before her alcohol infused brain thought to use the brakes. She pulled the stop up short. She opened the door and stumbled out. She slowly staggered into the building and down the corridors.

She made it into Krendler's office and leaned against the wall, heavily.

"You needed to see me?"

He did not respond immediately, but instead he crossed his legs and lit a cigar that in all likelihood cost more than his tie and began to puff laborously on it. He leaned back with practiced arrogance and promptly tipped the chair over and fell to the floor with a loud crash. Had Clarice been sober enough she would have laughed, but she stood there dumbly wondering where in the hell her boss had gone and why she was in his office. She did not have enough time to find her answers before he seemed to reappear by black magic.

Krendler stood awkwardly, straightened his tie, and looked around for his cigar. The scent of burning polyester permeated the air and he quickly kicked out his cigar like a wild two-stepper. In the process in managed to bank his knee into the desk and release a few rather canned phrases.

"Starling," he looked at her a moment as if deciding if he actually needed her there, or if it had simply been a joke to exert his power over her. Decided, he fumbled through his drawers and withdrew a piece of cheap copier paper with smudged ink. Even with the poor quality of the document, the handwriting was as identifiable as a fingerprint. Glorious, rich copperplate filled the page with an unspoken elegance. Undoubtedly, the original was either locked away in an airproof vault, or a low man on the totem poll eager to make a quick buck had stolen it, but either way it would have been something to behold. She could almost picture and feel the creamy heftiness of the original in her hand. The black ink cutting across it and bleeding into the very heart of as the white purity of it became soiled.

Clarice nearly reached for it, but her balance was too precarious to risk the sudden movement; she stayed still. Her lack of reaction obviously puzzled Krendler as she waved the letter in front of her like a chunk of dead cow in front of a caged lioness. She did not bite.

"This came for you," his voice haughty as a child who had the last piece of candy.

"Was it sent here or my house?"

"Your house, the techies found it when they would searching through your mail. The years they spent combing through every letter finally bore some fruit"

"Whatever happened to the bill of rights?"

"You became government property," he handed the letter to her; at last, as if it were diseased, and she by proxy was disease. "It was delivered about a week ago. I supposed to tell you about it earlier, but it totally slipped my mind, too many important things to worry about."

_Too many asses to kiss you mean. _"Well, thanks for telling me about it as soon as you remembered." If Krendler caught the sarcasm, he refused to acknowledge it. "What I am supposed to do about the letter?"

"Write back to him; you're the only one he'll answer to. The people working on his case want you here early this morning at seven. You might be able you save your sorry career. Save the hero antics for another time, if you are lucky you might get to bring the real experts coffee. For future reference, I like mine black…with lots of sugar. So you should go home and sober up and get your ass back her and be ready to work."

Clarice stumbled into her office and collapsed onto her desk. The letter she had shoved in her pocket was still unread so she fumbled around for it until she was able to pull it out. The lines squirmed together on the page and she squinted to read them.

_Dear Clarice, _

_How goes the FBI? Have you finally become their Isaac? The newspapers paint you as a horseman of the Apocalypse. How unfortunate, but perhaps you can now understand being imprisoned. Alas, your bars are not iron, but instead you have built them out of your own flesh and blood to protect yourself only to find yourself trapped behind your self-preserving walls. _

_Would your father join in the condemning of you? You failed his memory, or at least the one you created of him. The lambs must be screaming by now not be saved from slaughter, but to be saved from you._

_Perhaps we can have a conversation at a later date. I shall be waiting and watching for your reply. Though, you lack a certain punctuality in letter writing that exists in all other parts of your life._

_H._

_When did I fall into hell? _Was her last waking thought.

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And there you have it, the teaser for the new story. I have no idea where this story will go from here, but it will be darker than my first work. I hope you enjoyed it. Next chapter's ETA end of the month.


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